Day Four - Living Till Dying

 My emotional level continues to be tamped down by intellect and consideration of survival...probably part of the healing from pneumonia. But it's also how I run. This person approaches everything that way. Probably how I lived to this 83 year age. Not intentional. More organic coming from the determined attitude to just continue in this existence. To possibly get as much out of each experience as possible.

Once I thought I was pretty hedonistic, thinking of joy, happiness, many orgasms taking the place of true love (whatever that is). I had fun. I was self-centered. Yet I had closeness with other people. Now there aren't that many people who I feel really close with. At chair yoga I hugged a couple of friends, including the teacher (after asking permission of course.)

I blame it partly on the pandemic - this sense of disconnection, which only comes back when a crisis happens.

And aging of course...less energy, less sexuality. Less sensuality. Less physicality!

So Friday I went to chair yoga...after the shower. Then stayed for lunch with other seniors. Listened to their topics of interest...How were they spending their lives?

It was most enjoyable sharing experiences, like when first talking in public as comfortable (or not!) That was after the woman sitting next to me led the prayer for grace. I didn't bite when one of the women said that in the past I'd said this was the Christian table. It may be, but adding my pagan ideas would have not gained any friends.

I was wanting to listen to these people, find out more about their lives. I did. From the events when each was in the 7th grade, to when Kennedy was shot, to the most recent purchases of plants (and where they were bought!) to a new store in town with good sourdough bread and fresh tasty tomatoes. We even got into personal experiences of early deaths of school-mates. I shared how my Republican Texas family had been highly critical of JFK when he was elected president, and then their feelings when he'd been killed. I was aware that many of the 4 other women at the table might have been tRump supporters...and avoided saying a word about him, or my being a Democrat who had stood my ground with my Republican relatives. I've learned that if I want to listen, I'd best keep my mouth shut.

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Yesterday I searched and searched blogger for my usual blogs I read...my favorites, which are listed in the right hand column. They didn't show.

And I started mentioning it on all the comments I made. 

I think it happened when I changed my profile photo to one of my FATHER as a child, in 1916. I also tried to change it on Google. BIG MISTAKE. If ever a 83 year old woman seems to be a Ped O File, the algorithm must have listed me. So I've gone with a dragon. 

The comments don't seem to work on this particular blog yet, as I've asked for them to be moderated and sent to my email (and I tried adding the blog link as a contact...we shall see.)

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So rather than having anything new to add as Saturday the sun is dipping close to the western trees, I've spent the last couple of hours making bread. Yep, when all else is frustrating, make bread.

It isn't very good coming out of the Cuisinart Bread Maker with much too thick a crust, and rises only about 2/3 of a loaf height. But it smells good and tastes ok with melting butter.

I did appreciate a Facebook post I just read. I think another blogger, Gwynneth Rixon of Ook, shared it, because I commented directly to her...perhaps in error, as I now am finding several other sites which published it. Here is the written text, and following that is the YouTube video of the interview with Terry Gross.

It's from Maruice Sendak, and his loss of his partner, and dying...

In September 2011, an 83-year-old man named Maurice Sendak picked up the phone in his Connecticut home and called Terry Gross at NPR.

He had been on her show many times before. As one of the most beloved children’s book authors in history, he had written and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and dozens of other books that became woven into the childhoods of millions.

He had a new book out called Bumble-Ardy. He had created it during the most painful period of his life, while his partner of 50 years, Eugene Glynn, was dying. "I did Bumble-Ardy to save myself," he told Terry. "I did not want to die with him."

What followed was one of the most beautiful interviews ever broadcast. For nineteen minutes, Maurice Sendak talked about getting old, about dying, and about the people he had loved. He spoke of the maple trees outside his studio window that were hundreds of years old and how, in the final stretch of his life, he had finally fallen completely in love with the world.

He cried. Terry cried. Listeners all over the country, driving in their cars or washing dishes, pulled over and cried with them.

He spoke of the tragedy of being 83 and outliving almost everyone he loved most—his parents, his brother Jack, his sister Natalie, his longtime publisher, and most painfully, Eugene. Then he said something that has been quoted ever since: "I’m not unhappy about becoming old. I’m not unhappy about what must be. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more."

He talked about how strange it was to find peace so late in life. He had spent most of his years unhappy, raised by Holocaust survivors who carried a grief they passed down to him. He had spent decades in therapy, once saying he believed in the existence of happy people but had never been one of them.

But near the end, something changed. He told Terry he was now in love with the world. He could look out his window at those beautiful trees and see them for what they were. He called it a blessing to grow old and have time for the things he loved—the books, the music, the quiet moments. "I have nothing now but praise for my life," he said.

At the end of the interview, he shared something with Terry that stayed with everyone who heard it: "You are the only person I have ever dealt with... who brings this out in me. There’s something very unique and special in you, which I so trust."

As they both wept, he added: "Almost certainly, I’ll go before you go, so I won’t have to miss you." Then, before hanging up, he gave her three final pieces of advice: "Live your life. Live your life. Live your life."

Eight months later, on May 8, 2012, Maurice Sendak passed away peacefully in a hospital in Connecticut at the age of 83.

His friend Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, was with him in his final days and brought him a gift: a photograph of Lewis Carroll sitting on a windowsill with his feet hanging outside. It was a perfect goodbye. The man who spent his life drawing children stepping into other worlds was now stepping into his own.

His books remain in nearly every library, and generations of children still join Max on his wild rumpus, always returning home to find their dinner waiting for them—and still hot.

In that final interview, he told Terry he would keep crying for the people he lost all the way to the end. "I’m a happy old man," he said. "But I will cry my way all the way to the grave."

He cried because he loved them. That was the whole secret. That was always the whole secret.